


Of Rainbows and Rain

by Shameless_Weeb_Lacking_A_Filter



Category: Hourou Musuko | Wandering Son
Genre: Cute Kids, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Genderfluid Character, Insecurity, Middle School, Slice of Life, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-05 23:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shameless_Weeb_Lacking_A_Filter/pseuds/Shameless_Weeb_Lacking_A_Filter
Summary: Nitori Shuuichi is young and in love, as much as a secondary-schooler can be. But he's still figuring things out.Just like everyone else.





	1. Red

**Author's Note:**

> No one reads for this fandom but me, but it's still such a good anime and manga, and the whole concept is heart-wrenching, so here are my emotions laid out on the interwebs.

It starts at Chiba's house, the way everything starts at Chiba's house and everything ends at Chiba's house. 

Takatsuki-kun isn't there, of course (he-- _she_ never comes around anymore), and Nitori is already on edge, fingers tapping a nervous beat on his thigh, sweat beading at his temple. 

She's carrying a tray of tea, and she sets it down jerkily on the table, suddenly unsure of herself where she's always been confident before. 

"I have a dress for you to wear," she says eventually, breaking the oppressive silence that's settled over the room. 

Shuuichi stiffens. "Y-You said you wouldn't do anything w- _weird_ this time!" He accuses shakily, voice cracking on the word. 

He wants to wear the dress. Desperately. But he  _needs_ to be normal, now. Things aren't how they used to be. He can't play dress-up with Chiba, anymore. 

She shouldn't be encouraging his weirdness, anyway. 

Saorin looks pointedly to the side, a peculiar look settled over her features. 

Is she  _blushing?_ The idea seems preposterous. Chiba doesn't  _blush_. Chiba is distant and cold and so...  _grown up._ Chiba doesn't blush. 

But no, her cheeks are painted a pretty sort of crimson, and it makes Nitori blush too. 

He doesn't know what to think. 


	2. Pink

Maho has a new skirt. 

It's pretty, and Shuuichi always has had such a fondness for pretty things. 

He waits until nightfall, when his older sister is away at a friend's house, and opens up the shopping bag like he's opening a treasure chest. He peels back the tissue paper and it's better than Christmas. 

The cloth is thin and flows through his fingers as easily as running water, silken smooth and perfect. It's a soft, baby pink that will look good on Maho. 

It will look better on him. 

The zipper snaps when he tries to close up the seam, and he very nearly cries. His hips are too boyish and square to properly fit in the waist. It hurts. 

But when he brushes the wig into place and fastens the clip into his hair, he looks like a real girl. He hides the broken zipper with the hem of his shirt. 

He's giggling, twirling around in their shared room and feeling the breeze on his legs. Laughing to himself, he takes a few pictures on his phone, posing like the models do on Maho's posters. 

The door creaks open. 

"Shuu, I forgot my--" 

He drops his phone. 


	3. Orange

Mako and Nitorin are a lot alike, usually. They both like fried shrimp and boys and pretty things, and they like to talk on the phone for hours about nothing at all. 

He and Mako are good friends like that. 

Shuuichi is glad to have Mako, really he is. 

But Mako is not Takatsuki-kun. 

This is something that is always on Shuu's mind, of course, but it especially matters  _now,_ when they're watching the sunset together off Mako's balcony. It seems like something a couple should do, seems somehow intimate. 

And well (Nitorin blushes to think of it), it's kind of hard for him to think of intimacy without thinking of Takatsuki-kun. 

Mako keeps edging closer, and it's not a bad thing, it doesn't make him uncomfortable or anything, because honestly, how could he be uncomfortable with  _Mako?_  

But it still reminds him that Mako isn't Takatsuki. 

"Mako-chan," Shuuichi says softly, watching the sky fade from orange to dusky pink and into midnight purple. "Do you think that, from his apartment, Takatsuki-kun is watching the sunset, too?" 

Mako doesn't correct Shuuichi on his pronouns and nods, entwining their fingers under the rail of the balcony. 

Mako is nice, like that. 


	4. Yellow

Takatsuki and Nitori meet up with Yuki after school one day, and she's wearing this delicate sundress the color of daffodils that makes something in Nitori's heart  _yank._  

It's not something he could ever see himself wearing. It's done in multiple layers, sheer and thin like crepe paper, with a neckline cut specifically for grown women (if that thought makes heat creep up the back of Shuu's neck, he doesn't say). 

Clearly, it's not meant for someone like him to wear, not like he is now, all flat and square. He's not jealous, though. He's  _not._  

(Even though he's in his school slacks and the button-up shirt with the plastic board in the collar that makes his neck ache.) 

Either way, they all go out to eat, and Yuki's got on this ridiculous floppy hat like they've gone to the beach instead of a cafe, and people look at her because of how silly she is and not because...

Well. 

Not because of... 

No one knows what she used to be. 

And Yuki  _smiles,_ so broad and sunshine-bright, like Nitorin never can when he's out in public and dressed pretty. 

He's not jealous.

He's not, he's not, he's _not_. 


	5. Green

Spring has sprung, which means flowers and the outdoors and  _bugs._

"Shuu, look over here! Isn't this cute?" 

"Shuu, do I have grass on my shorts?" 

"Say, if I asked Maiko-chan for an autograph, do you think she'd give me one?" 

"Geez, Shuu, don't you ever think of anything except that girl? You're so strange!" 

It also means family picnics, which, in turn, means Maho refusing to leave him alone. They're about to eat outside in the park, picnicking with a western theme that their mother thought up, and Maho has been talking his ear off the whole time. 

The meal is okay, if a bit unusual, and when he stops to go to the restroom, Maho follows him. 

As soon as they're out of earshot, Maho tells him that she bought a dress with some friends yesterday and if she catches him wearing it she'll tell their parents everything. 

"--And then Mom will know what a pervert you really are, trying on girls' clothes and  _breaking them_ ; do you know how much the zipper on that skirt cost--"

For dessert his mom makes apple pie, and the sweetness of it makes him sick to his stomach.   
 


	6. Blue

Nitorin likes the rain. 

Not standing out in it, of course, but he likes listening to it hit the roof and feeling cozy indoors. 

That is part of why, when Mako shows up at his door, dripping wet and shivering and all in all looking like a drowned puppy, he doesn't hesitate in offering a place to stay and some warm clothes. 

"Why are you here?" He asks, and winces. "I mean, was there something that you needed?" He amends quickly. 

"I'm sad," Mako says, soft and wary like a wounded animal. Nitorin almost laughs. 

"I can see that," he gestures to the tear-tracks on Mako's cheeks that the storm hasn't managed to wash away. "Is everything all right?" 

"No," Mako sniffs, and spills everything, emptying himself of his fears and insecurities so thoroughly that Nitori feels rather like Mako's taken a blade to his own stomach and cut himself open, letting his entrails spill freely on the floor. 

_I envy you,_ he say.  _I always have. But I'm still your friend. And I'd like-- I'd like to be more than that, if you'd have me._

Mako may have opened himself up, but Nitorin feels just as gutted. 


	7. Violet

Takatsuki-kun shows up at Nitorin's house with her hair pinned back and her nails done in a shade of purple that matches her skirt. 

"Sarashina said I would look good like this," she says by way of explanation, and the hopeful note in her voice makes his whole world roll. 

It's like someone's pulled the rug out from underneath him, because he hasn't thought of Takatsuki like this in a long time-- hasn't seen her as a Real Girl since the beginning of elementary school. 

"What do you think?" She asks, and Nitorin realizes that she's been waiting for a response while he's been standing here gaping at her. 

 _You want the girl you to fall in love with the boy Takatsuki._  

"I think you look really good!" He blurts, and she  _does_ look really good, but she just doesn't look like the Takatsuki he knows. 

She flushes delicately pink, and for a moment they just stand there, looking at the ground rather than each other, Takatsuki scuffing the toe of her shoe against the pavement. 

"W-Would you like to come inside?" 

The smile she gives him is blinding and makes him go a little wobbly. 

"Yeah. Yeah I would." 


	8. Black

Shuuichi is feeling both stupid and brave when he tells Yuki the truth. 

"I'm not just dressing like a girl, Yuki-san, I  _am_ one." 

Yuki roars with laughter in the careless way she does, and tells him that he "has a dick, I've  _seen it,_ kid", in response to which he can only blush and say, "On the  _inside,_ Yuki-san." 

She wipes away tears of mirth from the corners of her eyes and says, "You're just a kid, Shuu, you don't know what you're doing yet." 

And that's the honest truth, really, but it hurts, makes Nitorin's throat tight. The air is thick, suffocating even, and his vision swims in that awful way that means he's going to cry. 

He's going to cry like the little kid he is. 

"Hey, hey," Yuki's starting to panic, humor gone because even she knows the signs of a coming storm. "I just mean, don't think too hard on things, yeah? It doesn't matter what clothes you want to wear yet, or who you think you want to be. You're young, Nitori-kun. You've got time to figure it all out later, okay?" 

He's too old for this and not old enough and he cries anyway. 


	9. Grey

The next time Shuuichi sees Takatsuki-kun, they've run into each other at a cafe. 

It wouldn't be strange, except that Nitori's in girls' clothes and Takatsuki's wearing boy clothes, too. She's holding a messenger bag (intentionally not a purse-- not on a Boy day) and when she sees Nitori she grins. 

"Wanna sit together?" She asks, and because she knows Nitori, knows what his answer will be before he opens his mouth, goes ahead and sits down across from him anyway. 

From anyone else's perspective, it must look like they're on a... 

He blushes fiercely and ignores the way his heart stubbornly skips two beats. 

The waitress comes to take their orders and tells Takatsuki with a wink, "Your girlfriend is very pretty." 

Both of them flush, Shuuichi turning tomato-colored-red but feeling lighter than air. He stutters out his order and Takatsuki teases him for it mercilessly. 

It's all going very well until two boys Nitori thinks might be friends with Maho spot them and start jeering, flinging insults at Shuuichi like knives. 

"Ignore them," Takatsuki whispers, leading Nitori out of the restaurant, but he already feels like the color's been washed right out of him, and now he's just flat grey. 


	10. White

It's a new school year and everything's meant to be different, but everything's the same. 

He and Mako still stand too close to each other and Takatsuki and Chiba still hate each other and Sarashina's still a weirdo who owns a soba place. 

Takatsuki's got a new cellphone strap that Sarashina gave her, a little pink bauble that makes a jingly noise as she walks. It's girly and doesn't suit her at all, but it's not like anyone asks Nitorin for his opinions on these things.

Sometimes Nitorin lets himself dream of holding Takatsuki's hand or of her walking him home (he dreams of himself with long hair and of Takatsuki in her Boy clothes and of clover-shaped hairpins). 

He and Mako hold hands sometimes, too, but Nitorin knows it's not quite the same thing. 

The only different thing is when Takatsuki tells him that she doesn't want a be a boy-- she just wants to be herself, and maybe that means she's some of everything, or maybe she's nothing at all. 

It's a new school year and things are meant to be different, but somehow Nitori's still stuck being a not-quite-boy who's hung up on a not-quite-girl. 


End file.
